Beware of the GuestReservations site

We are preparing for a holiday in the Italian riviera at the beginning of September. Several months ago, I had suggested that we stay in Rapallo, but when we looked at videos from there and neighbouring towns such as Santa Margherita Liguria and Camogli, my wife wasn't very enthusiastic. "It's all the same - all one can see is the sea". So I compromised and suggested that we stay in Genoa and make day trips to the various towns along the coast, as well as seeing the (few) sights of Genoa.

Now that the major mourning period for my late brother in law¹ is over, my wife very much needs a chance to recharge her batteries, so I renewed the idea. We looked at hotels in Genoa and were very disappointed: none of them seemed to answer all of our needs (not that there are that many). I suggested another compromise, that we spend a few days in Genoa and then move to Rapallo, but after seeing those hotels, we decided to abandon this and spend all our nights in Rapallo as I had originally intended.

We will fly to Malpensa airport, north of Milan, as we did last year; from there we have to take the soi disant Malpensa express train² to Milan. From there, there is a direct train to Genoa, although that part of the journey takes about two hours. I thought that we would have to change trains (again) in Genoa, but it turns out that the same train continues to Rapallo (and who knows where else, probably Cinque Terra and Pisa). Depending on which time we catch the first train, the cost for both of us one way can vary between $50 and $75! Buying a return ticket is not possible as we will not be returning in the same week.

Then I started looking for hotels in Rapallo. The first one that I found seemed wonderful and not too expensive until I realised that the price that I was looking at was per night and not for the entire stay. Then I found another hotel which seems to be far in excess of what we need but will give us a good chance to relax: Hotel Italia e Lido Rapallo. Like our hotel at Lake Como, it's across the road from the water. Obviously we have to have a sea-facing room, despite the cost.

Here the story becomes more complicated. I thought that I was ordering the room from the hotel's website, but it turns out that I was ordering through a third party, Guest Reservations. I booked the room and gave my credit card details; a moment later - and a moment too late - I realised that they had added 45% to the cost of the room, a mere $1285. The additions were for "Tax recovery charges" and "Service fees", as if it makes a difference. I was incensed.

The GuestReservations site has a 'contact us' page, but when I tried to write an annoyed letter, every time it would be rejected as I was lacking an 'itinerary number' that is mandatory on their form but was not included in the confirmation letter that I received. In the evening, I tried phoning them; supposedly they have a local telephone number, but this number is not in use, so I had to phone USA. I was answered by what is presumably an AI bot who was operating off a script, so it was very difficult to progress.

After about five calls, I finally got through to a human being (Indian, judging by the accent) who seemed very apologetic but probably was laughing to himself all the time. After we got through the preliminaries, he gave me the missing itinerary number; I checked that I had written it down correctly. Then I asked about the charges and was told that I should speak to the hotel about them. Finally I asked about cancelling and was told that in that case, I would receive a refund of about $150 - I don't remember the actual figure as it was so insulting, but it was about 4% of what I had paid.

I sent an email to the hotel asking about those fees; to my surprise, I received an answer quite swiftly - they didn't know what I was talking about. Shortly after, I went to bed, but all night my mind was occupied with this problem.

I decided that the best thing to do would be to instruct the credit card company not to honour the request of GuestReservations; I wanted to keep the reservation but pay the hotel directly. So I was carrying on three conversations at once: with the hotel (not very productive), with our travel agent (also not very productive) and with the credit card company (slightly more productive). To conclude: they had yet to receive a request so they couldn't cancel it, but I think that I managed to convince them that I had fallen victim of a fraud - that should be reason enough to refuse the charge.

Later on, my travel agent sent me the picture shown below - someone had also been stung by this company.

Internal links
[1] 1957
[2] 1749

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